<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>a bird in your teeth by birthdaycandles</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27021211">a bird in your teeth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/birthdaycandles/pseuds/birthdaycandles'>birthdaycandles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Kinda, M/M, Post-Season/Series 01, Slow Burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:15:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,578</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27021211</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/birthdaycandles/pseuds/birthdaycandles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“So you’re just...you’re just like raising these kittens?” Jonathan clarifies. It’s the most obvious, simplistic explanation. It never seemed right. Yet here he is, getting the entire story with Steve nodding in confirmation, and Jonathan tries to recall why he thought it didn’t seem right in the first place. “How many times a day do you come back here?”</p>
<p>“Well they need to be fed five times a day. Typically four for most kittens but I can’t come in the middle of the night, so I give them extra during the day. So, yeah. Five.”</p>
<p>“I could come sometimes.” Jonathan says without thinking.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>88</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s something about an empty high school that Jonathan finds strangely thrilling. </p>
<p>It’s like he isn’t supposed to be there. He feels like he’s breaking a law or lucid dreaming, despite the hall pass that’s currently shoved in his jean pocket with the long yellow lanyard sticking out and swaying with each step he takes. And the school isn’t really empty. If he looks into the windows on the doors of any classroom he passes, he’ll find the student body of Hawkins High slumped in their desks. It’s fourth period. </p>
<p>Jonathan is carrying two cardboard boxes. One is big enough to require carrying with both arms, meaning the other smaller box is being tenuously held up by a few fingers. It’s slipping a little, but he’s pretty sure he can make it to the dumpster before it does. Mrs. Brennan offered to send someone else with him, but he’d insisted he could do it. Having someone else would ruin the whole point. </p>
<p>If Jonathan was younger, the age Will is just about to leave, he’d be pretending he was in the apocalypse. Or maybe he’d be a spy infiltrating the school, but he would get caught up in the logistics of that one. Like, what would a spy want with Hawkins High? He was too practical as a kid. Too realistic. He <em>definitely</em> never would’ve guessed that a hole would open up to another dimension and swallow his little brother one day. </p>
<p>Fantasies don’t really excite Jonathan the way they used to. Now it’s enough for him to look at the endless row of closed lockers and the signs posted to the bulletin board hanging completely still, unrustled by the lack of passing movement, and just think. There’s a sign up advertising a spirit night at Dairy Queen this Friday. It says in neat purple marker that if you mention the Hawkins High volleyball team, you get 20% off your meal. Will loves Dairy Queen. It’ll cheer him up a little to go, Jonathan thinks, and now he’s firmly satisfied with his choice to volunteer to take the boxes out for Mrs. Brennan. He would have never seen that sign during passing period. He doesn’t look up much in the hallways. </p>
<p>The only concern he has at the moment is the exit door in the English hall closing and locking behind him. After incidents they usually start locking the doors for about a week before they give up. This week’s incident is unclear, but Jonathan’s heard whisperings about something in the boys’ locker room. Oddly enough, though, when he reaches the door he finds someone’s already keeping it wedged open with a copy of the school newspaper. Jonathan can see the picture he took from the annual fun run on the front, Kelly Malka’s face folded in half. Careful not to kick it out of the way, Jonathan steps outside into the new coolness of September. </p>
<p>He has maybe ten seconds left until the smaller box slips, but Jonathan makes it to the dumpster in seven. The dumpster is on the curb and tall enough that he has to toss the boxes in, which he does successfully with the big one. The small one, however, sails over the dumpster entirely and lands behind it. Jonathan is suddenly extremely glad there’s no one else with him. </p>
<p>He walks around to the back, and that’s when he sees them. If he had thrown with slightly more force, he would’ve hit them with the box. Part of him is shocked by how tiny they are. Are they supposed to be that tiny? He slowly approaches them, careful not to make any movements too sudden or too quick, and kneels down. The biggest one is smaller than his outstretched hand. </p>
<p>“Hey.” Jonathan mutters to the two gray and white kittens that seem content to lay in the grass behind the dumpster. The smaller one even lets him rub a finger against its tiny head, and the second he does they both erupt in determined mewing. It’s probably the cutest noise Jonathan has ever heard in his life. They’re both easily the cutest thing he’s ever seen in his life. Their eyes are big for their little, still-scrunched up faces, both sets the same shade of blue. They seem to want something from him because they haven’t stopped crying and the bigger one is attempting to climb onto his shoe. Suddenly there are additional cries. </p>
<p>Jonathan glances up to find a box, a few feet away from the one he threw, tipped over sideways and spilling kittens onto the grass. Another four kittens are making wobbly steps towards him, crying along with their siblings. They’re probably hungry, Jonathan realizes, and with a deep pang of dread he understands what the lack of a momma cat probably means for them. </p>
<p>Six kittens. All tiny and covered with different patterns of gray and white. Would he be able to take them home? The immediate answer his mind supplies is a firm <em>hell no</em>. Mom would stress about this in the most mundane of circumstances, and <em>now</em>? While Will is getting treated for his episodes every month and the cost of medical bills is still unpaid and she cried last week preparing dinner because the green beans burned? It wouldn’t work. </p>
<p>Maybe Jonathan could at least make a sign. He could put it on the bulletin board, anonymously, next to the one about spirit night. <em>Six kittens free behind the dumpster</em>. He eyes the box again and realizes he should probably check for a seventh. How many kittens can cats have in one litter? He has no idea. The only pet he’s ever had is Chester, and that was just a way for Lonnie to piss off Mom when they were fighting. </p>
<p>The box, upon closer examination, is furnished. There’s a small blanket carefully folded up inside and, inexplicably, a tennis ball. There’s also a plastic syringe that needs to be rinsed out, looking like it once contained something white. Milk, he realizes, or maybe formula. Someone is already feeding these kittens. Looking after them. Suddenly making a poster doesn’t seem like the best idea anymore. Maybe they’re trying to make arrangements to bring the cats home, and until then they’re just keeping them supplied with food and shelter here. It’s a secluded spot, and from the front of the dumpster Jonathan never would’ve seen them. It seems safe enough. </p>
<p>Mrs. Brennan is going to send someone to look for him eventually. Jonathan scoops up the kitten trying to climb up the leg of his jeans and places it back in the box. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry.” He tells them. “I don’t have anything. Maybe I could bring something later.”</p>
<p>One of them yawns with enough force to make its entire little body shake and promptly flops over onto the grass. Jonathan thinks if anything happens to these kittens, he might die. </p>
<p>He slips back into the school and wonders if whoever is feeding the kittens is the same person who’s keeping the door open. </p>
<p>Normally being a few minutes late to picking Will up from school wouldn’t be a huge deal. By normally, he really just means before. Last year, coming up on almost a full 365 days ago, everything was cut into before and after. He’s so far into the after that he keeps expecting to adjust to it, but he never does. Especially when things are still so turbulent. The first time Jonathan had seen Will go into an episode, his heart hadn’t stopped pounding for another half hour. He had to sit on the bathroom floor with his head between his knees and scold himself for freaking out when it was <em>Will</em> who went catatonic and white as a ghost. </p>
<p>It makes stuff like being on time to pick him up more important than ever. The rest of his friends still ride their bikes home, which Jonathan can tell he misses, but he does his best to make it bearable. He gives Will control of the radio and lets him roll the windows down if he wants, even though the dull roar of wind always gives Jonathan a headache. </p>
<p>Knowing this, Jonathan tells himself he won’t stop to mess with the kittens. His plan is to just pass by, glance behind the dumpster, and walk straight to the parking lot from there. It’s not like he can really do anything for them, anyways, except hold them. </p>
<p>It’s a good thing his plan didn’t include just barging back there, because if it did he would have come face to face with the person he can see knelt down in the grass. His back is to Jonathan and the kittens are crying frantically enough to drown out any sounds of his voice, but the hair is a dead giveaway. Even from behind. </p>
<p>Steve Harrington is hand-feeding these orphaned kittens with a plastic syringe. Jonathan watches him extend an arm to refill the syringe from a little thermos of something before it goes back to being obstructed by his body. His backpack is discarded on the grass beside him and there are three kittens, possibly already fed, curled up on top of it. </p>
<p>“Ouch.” He hears Steve mutter. “That’s my <em>finger</em>, Lucy.”</p>
<p>They have names. Jonathan can’t explain it, but that’s somehow the most shocking aspect of this whole thing. There has to be an explanation for this beyond Steve Harrington actually finding these kittens and choosing to feed them and shelter them and give them individual names. Is that what Steve <em>does</em>? </p>
<p>In all honesty, Jonathan has been ignoring Steve. Not in the sense that Steve has tried to interact with him and Jonathan has brushed him off or anything, but in the sense that his brain sometimes wants to figure Steve out and Jonathan has to promptly tell his brain to shut up. It’s the same thing Lonnie would yell at him about the few times he tried to help him with his math homework. He’d say, Jonathan, just because a problem is hard doesn’t mean you just skip it. Mom had said skipping problems was okay as long as you eventually went back and gave it your best try. And that’s what Jonathan is doing with Steve ever since he inexplicably decided to apologize for being a dick and then throw himself in front of a monster and <em>then</em> sit in the hospital waiting room while Will slept. He can’t figure it out and he’ll come back to it later. </p>
<p>This kind of forces the issue though. It adds another step to the problem. Now not only is Steve the guy who could’ve died in an attempt to save Jonathan from a monster, but he’s also a guy feeding kittens behind the school. And naming them. Names that are filled with a sort of sincerity, not just a cop-out like Snowball or Whiskers or something. </p>
<p><em>Lucy</em>. </p>
<p>Jonathan checks his watch. He’s been standing here, watching from the other side of the dumpster, for three minutes. Three minutes late is still late. He takes a step back without remembering that he’d stepped onto the curb for a better view and stupidly grasps at the dumpster when his foot takes an extra second to hit the ground. </p>
<p>It makes a slight clanging noise and the kittens start crying again. Jonathan speedwalks away and hopes Steve was more preoccupied with the crying to turn around and see who was watching him. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>This is why Jonathan never liked math. </p>
<p>Here he is, having decided to actually buckle down and figure out the problem, and yet three days have passed without a single explanation. And he’s <em>tried</em>. He’s reached what he thought was the correct answer several times only to have them immediately disproven, crossed off with red pen. </p>
<p>His first guess was that the kittens were really Nancy’s project. Karen Wheeler runs a tight ship. Will’s friends prefer their house because the Wheelers are a no shoes on the carpet, no food in bedrooms type family. A box of six feral kittens is quite literally the last thing Mrs. Wheeler would likely allow inside her household. So clearly Nancy found the kittens, realized she couldn’t take them home, and decided to take care of them. For whatever reason she must have recruited Steve to take a shift on Monday. Jonathan felt perfectly satisfied with that explanation and ignored the little sting of jealousy that always accompanied thinking about Nancy and Steve as one unit, as a team. </p>
<p>“I hate cats.” She’d said on the phone Tuesday night, so succinct in demolishing his theory. He had asked her if he was correctly remembering them ever having a pet cat. Jonathan can’t explain the nagging reluctance he has to outright alluding to the kittens behind the dumpster. There’s something about it that feels secret, and if he was wrong about Nancy’s involvement, he didn’t want the secret to be given up. It makes the whole feeling doubly strange, because if there’s anyone he should be willing to tell a secret to, it’s Nancy.</p>
<p>And he was wrong, clearly. She went on for five minutes about her grandmother’s tuxedo cat who hissed at her every Christmas and pulled the ornaments off the tree. In hindsight, Nancy would be the kind of person to call an animal shelter if she found a box of kittens. She’s practical. </p>
<p>Jonathan’s next guess is that Steve is doing this to impress someone, but that one dies out quickly enough based on his own faulty reasoning. Who would he be trying to impress? It might have made sense a little over a year ago, before he was dating Nancy and he had an entire school of girls to woo with his hair and his apparent compassion for baby animals. But now it would have to be either Nancy or some random dude, neither of which add up. </p>
<p>His theories are getting increasingly ridiculous and beginning to sound more like the elaborate daydreams of his childhood again when Nancy finds him before fifth period on Thursday. She looks confused. </p>
<p>“Steve sprained his wrist at practice.” She says in lieu of a greeting. It’s an intriguing enough greeting to make him fully turn away from his locker and face her. </p>
<p>“Uh, wow. How bad is it?”</p>
<p>“I guess it must be pretty bad because he’s actually getting it checked. He usually just ignores stuff.” Jonathan wonders if that’s an athlete thing or a Steve thing. He doesn’t want to ask Nancy why she’s telling him this and thankfully before he can even begin to figure out a response, she hastily continues, “He asked if you could take notes for him in sociology because apparently you both have Kempter in different class periods?”</p>
<p>She’s scrutinizing him, eyebrows arched, like he and Steve are hiding something. That would be a fair assumption because the request makes absolutely zero sense. He didn’t even know Steve was in sociology. How did Steve know <em>he</em> was? And why would Steve Harrington, who has approximately five hundred friends, ask <em>Jonathan</em> to take notes for him? But Nancy is holding out a blue spiral notebook where his notes are apparently supposed to go and the bell is going to ring in a minute, so he takes it. </p>
<p>Nancy is still scrutinizing. “Are you guys like, friends all of the sudden?”</p>
<p>“What? No.” Nancy should know that better than anyone. She’s tried before. She invited Jonathan to eat lunch with them at Steve’s car on the first day of the new year, like maybe it could be instated as their new arrangement. Jonathan had even considered it. Then he thought about Steve’s arm slung around Nancy’s shoulder and the way they’d probably kiss when they departed at the bell ringing and he made up a lie about needing to use the lunch period to do extra work in newspaper if he wanted to be promoted to chief photographer. </p>
<p>Sometimes the three of them walk down the hallway for a split second. It never seems to count. Jonathan feels like there’s an entire chasm between himself and Steve, even though it’s just Nancy. </p>
<p>“Maybe Steve thinks you are.” Nancy suggests. </p>
<p>“Yeah.” Jonathan looks back down at the notebook and realizes a possibility that makes his stomach flip. This could all be a trick. The kind of trick akin to being asked to play soccer during recess with a group of boys he’s never talked to only to be made goalie and wait alone in the net for the entire game while the boys all laughed and kept the ball on the opposite end of the field. Would Steve do that after what happened last year? Would he use Nancy as a mouthpiece? Jonathan doesn’t think so, but that’s part of the joke. Jonathan thought he would be goalie. “Maybe.”</p>
<p>He stares at the blue notebook during class like it’s a pipebomb. If this isn’t a trick, Steve is never going to trust him to take notes again. Since when does Steve even care about class? Hasn’t he skipped to smoke with Tommy H. like a dozen times before? Did he ask people to take notes then?</p>
<p>Kempter mentions something that they should highlight. It’ll be on the quiz next week. Jonathan impulsively flips open the blue notebook and finds the newest page. There’s a sticky note pressed into it. </p>
<p><strong>FORMULA IN RED LUNCHBOX UNDER DUMPSTER. 20 MLS EACH.</strong> </p>
<p>Oh. </p>
<p>Jonathan is still confused. Less confused than before but still full of questions. He figures this means Steve saw him the other day. It makes him an accomplice to this whole situation. But still, why not ask Nancy? There must be some reason Steve doesn’t want her knowing. Jonathan is glad he didn’t blurt it out over the phone, then. His intuition had somehow guessed exactly what Steve wanted, despite them being two different species. </p>
<p>There’s still a lingering sense that he’s about to be the victim of an elaborate joke when he walks up to the dumpster after seventh period, but the red lunchbox is waiting for him. It has five icepacks crammed inside, protecting the thermos in the center. The kittens must be conditioned to recognize the sound of the zipper because they’re already venturing out of their box when he’s turned around. Three of them yawn like they were just taking a nap. </p>
<p>Jonathan suddenly feels very calm. </p>
<p>He gently takes the kitten that’s crying the loudest and transfers it into his lap. He wishes he knew their names. He also wishes he was better at feeding them, because it’s harder than he originally thought. The plunger on the syringe requires a good bit of force to push any liquid out and sometimes he pushes a touch too hard and accidentally floods the kitten with too much. Other times he must be going too slow because they nibble on his fingertip when they’re unsatisfied. </p>
<p>By the fourth kitten he has a rhythm. This particular kitten is the fluffiest of the litter, with fur that sticks up in every direction on its head. It also seems to have the sharpest teeth. After it gets its twenty milliliters it promptly chomps down on Jonathan’s palm and he curses under his breath. </p>
<p>Someone laughs at him. </p>
<p>Jonathan jerks his head up and finds Steve watching with his arms crossed over his chest. <em>A trick</em>, Jonathan thinks for a split second while his face preemptively heats up, and then he notices the black brace on Steve’s left arm. That and the lack of any other witnesses calm Jonathan’s heart rate before it can reach its peak hammering. </p>
<p>“I didn’t know how long it would take.” Steve explains, coming over to kneel adjacent to Jonathan. The already fed kittens squeak at him happily. “Sometimes emergency rooms are slow as hell, y’know? I didn’t want them to go hungry so I just figured...just in case.”</p>
<p>“Uh, yeah.” Jonathan nods like it all makes sense. Like this isn’t something from a fever dream. </p>
<p>“He got you, huh?” Steve asks. Jonathan stares at him, uncomprehending. Steve jerks his chin out to gesture at Jonathan’s hand, where two little spots of blood have welled up like vampire bites. “Yeah Aslan is like, a jerk.”</p>
<p>“Aslan.” Jonathan repeats. “And Lucy. You named them after…?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I mean whatever, they were like my favorite books as a kid.” Steve shrugs and looks away. He’s picked up another kitten presumably named from the mind of C.S. Lewis and strokes its head with his thumb. </p>
<p>It’s a stupid question to ask, but there’s a silence going on for too long to be comfortable, so Jonathan ventures, “Is your family religious?”</p>
<p>Steve looks up, face scrunched up in bewilderment. “No?”</p>
<p>Back to silence. The question that’s been torturing Jonathan all week could be answered here and now. He just has to ask and he’ll know. Why does it feel so impossible to speak? Under normal circumstances, Jonathan would acknowledge that it can be attributed to his general anxiety involving speaking to most people. These are not normal circumstances. This is not normal anxiety. </p>
<p>It isn’t even anxiety, if he really reaches for the feeling and holds it up under the light. He isn’t afraid of being ridiculed for saying the wrong thing or judged for being an idiot. Somehow he knows with utter certainty that neither of those results will come from talking to Steve. So what is he afraid of?</p>
<p>“If I tell Nancy, she’ll want me to take them to the shelter.” Steve says finally, answering the question he hadn’t asked yet. “And maybe that’s the responsible thing to do, but at shelters if they don’t get adopted by a certain time, they’ll...y’know. And even if they do all get adopted, they’ll be torn apart. They should be with their brothers and sisters. Right?”</p>
<p>He’s looking up at Jonathan expectantly and Jonathan nods instinctively. “Right.”</p>
<p>“I found them two weeks ago. Right before school started. I come here to smoke after practice sometimes. I <em>did</em>, I mean, I don’t anymore. I don’t want them to get lung cancer or whatever.”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh, yeah.”</p>
<p>“No one ever really comes back here. The garbage truck, but it’s so loud no one would ever be able to hear them. And they sleep all day unless I’m here anyways.”</p>
<p>“What’s the tennis ball for?” Jonathan asks. </p>
<p>“I thought maybe they could play with it.” Steve glances down at the kittens who are currently wobbling around on the grass, bumping into each other and tipping over every few seconds. Jonathan isn’t sure if Steve realizes the impossibility of them pushing around a tennis ball. He doesn’t say anything about it. </p>
<p>“So you’re just...you’re just like raising these kittens?” Jonathan clarifies. It’s the most obvious, simplistic explanation. It never seemed right. Yet here he is, getting the entire story with Steve nodding in confirmation, and Jonathan tries to recall why he thought it didn’t seem right in the first place. “How many times a day do you come back here?”</p>
<p>“Well they need to be fed five times a day. Typically four for most kittens but I can’t come in the middle of the night, so I give them extra during the day. So, yeah. Five.”</p>
<p>“I could come sometimes.” Jonathan says without thinking and regrets it the second it leaves his mouth. His heart starts beating faster again like it had a few minutes ago, the back of his neck heating up. Steve is quiet for a second, probably trying to think of a way to remind him that they aren’t friends and--</p>
<p>“That would be cool.” Steve responds, casual. Jonathan forces himself to make eye contact and finds nothing but sincerity and a touch of what looks like pleasant surprise. “I really need to stop ditching class.”</p>
<p>“Oh, uh, I got the notes.” He reaches for his bag and moves the kitten trying to mount it off. He pulls the notebook out with the sound of the spiral scraping against his books and hands it to Steve. Steve’s lips are parted slightly. </p>
<p>“You actually took notes?”</p>
<p>“You asked me to.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, for the--” Steve shakes his head. “Thanks. I suck at sociology.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, no problem.”</p>
<p>He glances at his watch. Will got picked up by Dustin’s mom today, but he still shouldn’t linger for too long. Mom’s worry is almost entirely focused on Will, but there’s still a little slice reserved for Jonathan. If she starts off the evening worried, it’ll only grow until she cries at dinner again. So he stands up with his backpack and brushes stray blades of grass off his knees, unsure what to do next. Is he supposed to smile? At Steve? At the kittens? </p>
<p>Steve smiles up at him. It’s small, easy-going. Jonathan isn’t sure what his face does in response, but he knows for sure that he offers, “I can come tomorrow during lunch.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, cool.” Steve says. Like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “Thanks.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>Jonathan hasn’t read <em>The Narnia Chronicles</em> since he was eight. He does remember that there are only four Penvensie children, and with the addition of Aslan that makes five. He drives home and wonders what Steve named the sixth kitten.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Caspian always wants more than he needs.” Steve remarks under his breath while the kitten Jonathan could’ve sworn was Peter nibbles at the tip of the syringe. Caspian, not Peter, tries to claw at the arm supporting him in frustration, but all his claws manage to catch onto is the fabric of Steve’s arm brace. Steve looks pleased with that result. </p><p>Jonathan wasn’t expecting Steve to be here when he arrived. He had thought the whole point in his assistance was that Steve wouldn’t have to skip class and lunch as frequently. Steve hadn’t given any explanation, so Jonathan can only assume he wanted to supervise and make sure he didn’t screw it up. </p><p>It does go a lot quicker when there are two of them. Jonathan has already fed Susan, Aslan, and Edmund. Steve calls him Eddie because he says Edmund is too dorky and Jonathan had to stop himself from pointing out that maybe naming kittens after characters from a childrens’ fantasy story is also kinda dorky. He isn’t sure what he’s allowed to say to Steve, what tone he’s allowed to take. His strategy thus far has been to ask questions. About the kittens, about his wrist, about anything he can think of. Questions are mostly neutral and from Steve’s answers, he can follow his lead on how to communicate. </p><p>“So Nancy has no idea you come back here?” </p><p>“Nope.” Steve shrugs. “She hates cats, anyways, she isn’t missing out.”</p><p><em>I know</em>, Jonathan almost says, but that isn’t a question. Instead he asks, “Don’t you eat lunch together?”</p><p>Steve glances up at him for a long moment before answering, an indecipherable expression on his face. Then the expression is wiped off and his expression is neutral again, a blank slate, and he explains, “I have government with Coach Wexler right before lunch. He lets me leave like, ten minutes early usually and that’s when I come here. Nancy’s doing student council stuff today, though.”</p><p>“He just lets you leave early?”</p><p>“I mean, not all the time. Sometimes when we have tests and quizzes he says I can’t.” </p><p>Jonathan feels like someone is revealing to him the existence of vampires. There was always a mythicality to Steve Harrington, stretching back before Jonathan even knew who he was. He can’t count the amount of rumors he’s heard. Steve Harrington’s parents own a private jet, Steve Harrington drank an entire keg by himself Freshman year, Steve Harrington is allowed to roam the hallways whenever he wants. Jonathan had always subscribed to the belief that it was all bullshit. He still thinks the first two are bullshit. </p><p>A year ago this would’ve been enough reason to hate him even more. Coupled with the information that he also apparently loves Narnia and brings kitten formula in a lunchbox to school every day, though, things seem more balanced. </p><p>Still. Jonathan is jealous. Steve gets to navigate the empty hallways whenever he wants. </p><p>“You ask a lot of questions.” Steve observes. <em>Shit</em>. The expression on his face must echo the sentiment, because Steve chuckles and adds, “I’m not saying that’s like, a bad thing. Just seems uneven.”</p><p>“Uneven how?” Jonathan asks, eliciting a pointed grin from Steve that he could almost reciprocate. Instead he focuses his attention on Susan, who seems to like him the most. She’s the only one he can identify immediately. Her entire face is white aside from her nose, which is covered by a nearly perfect circle of gray. She’s currently gnawing on his shoelaces and kicking at him with her back legs. </p><p>“Like, I don’t get to ask you anything.”</p><p>Jonathan is trapped now. He wants to know what that means, but to ask what it means would result in another teasing smile that Jonathan wouldn’t know what to do with. He’s also concerned that Steve might genuinely begin to think he’s socially inept. Why does he care what Steve thinks?</p><p>“You can ask me stuff.” He says carefully, although there are a lot of things he does not want Steve asking him. He’ll cross that bridge if he gets to it. </p><p>“That didn’t sound enthusiastic.” Steve notes. “Here’s a question, no pressure. Are we...cool?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t be sitting here if I hated you.”</p><p>“Right, okay.” Steve nods, like he’s sorting things out. Where did this question come from? Jonathan can’t imagine Steve genuinely worries about his perception of him. It echoes the exact questions Nancy has asked him a hundred times before, usually over the phone after she finishes telling a story that involves a date with Steve or family dinner Steve was invited to. <em>Do you hate him?</em> Jonathan always says no. He’d had to really think about it the first time, all the way back when the bruises on his knuckles were still healing. Now it’s easier. It comes natural. </p><p>Maybe Nancy doesn’t believe him. Why else would she ask so many times? It is entirely possible that Steve is asking a question truly posed by Nancy, just to see if the answer will be different when it’s his voice delivering the words. </p><p>“I just thought--” Steve starts and stops abruptly. Jonathan forces himself to look up, but he finds that Steve is focused on a kitten too. Either Lucy or Edmund. “I thought maybe Nancy asked you to talk to me or hang out with me or whatever.”</p><p>“Why would she do that?” Jonathan asks, forgetting the question rule. </p><p>“I think she wants us to be friends.” </p><p>Jonathan’s actually had the same thought. Once, right before summer break, Jonathan found an invitation slipped into his locker for a party at Steve’s house. There were parties at Steve’s house most months of the year, but apparently that one was a bigger deal because it was the last week of school and the pool in Steve’s backyard was the biggest and nicest in town. Jonathan had been so nauseated at the words <strong>POOL PARTY!</strong> printed in block letters that he’d crumpled the invitation up immediately and hadn’t wondered until later that night if Steve slipped the invitation in himself. If he had, Jonathan was pretty sure Nancy put him up to it. </p><p>Now he isn’t sure.</p><p>“She never asked me to do that.” </p><p>Steve nods. He seems not to know what to say for once. Jonathan wonders if this is the first time in Steve’s life that he’s had to explicitly ask how someone feels about him. Even the kittens make it obvious that he’s the center of their universe with the way they loudly purr when he touches them. Aren’t cats supposed to be moody and distant? That’s why Will had chosen Chester from the shelter and didn’t even bother looking at the cat kennels. </p><p>Either these kittens are defective, or the world has been lying to Jonathan about cats. The majority of them definitely prefer Steve to him, which is probably fair considering how much longer they’ve spent with Steve, but Susan is definitely most inclined to him. She’s much calmer than her siblings. She plays and occasionally nips at his fingers, but her play stems from what seems like curiosity rather than the frenzied energy that the others are all filled with. </p><p>She nudges her head against his fingers with an accompanying small trilling noise. “I can come back between sixth and seventh. My last class is right by here.” </p><p>“Yeah?” Steve looks up. Maybe it’s the way the light is hitting him or Jonathan is just looking at him closely for the first time, but Steve looks tired. As if immediately confirming the thought, his jaw suddenly tightens with a suppressed yawn. “That would be cool.”</p><p>“What do you do about them over the weekend?”</p><p>“I just come over here. You don’t have to do that, though, I know it’s like a lot of work and your place isn’t near here. But coming after sixth would be really helpful. There’s a game tonight so I won’t really be able to get away.”</p><p>“You’re playing?” Jonathan asks, slightly reeling from the fact that Steve seems to remember where his place is. Steve shrugs. </p><p>“Why wouldn’t I be?”</p><p>“Your wrist. It’s sprained, right?”</p><p>“Barely.” Steve holds the wrist in question up, taking Edmund with it as he clings to the brace with his deceptively sharp claws. “I’ve played with worse.”</p><p>Jonathan wants to tell him how stupid that is. A lack of interest in sports tends to automatically equate boys with laziness or other much more offensive adjectives, which Jonathan thinks is insanely unfair when you look at the logistics of the whole thing. Is it really so terrible to not want his arm in a brace and to not subject that arm even further to the aggression of other guys? To not want to run himself ragged while he’s already visibly tired?</p><p>He’s also noticed that the people who tend to preach about the glory of sports are usually old. Their involvement never seems to go beyond <em>watching</em> sports, despite their insistence that they used to play. Jonathan looked through his parents’ yearbook. He didn’t see any pictures of Lonnie playing sports. </p><p>But he won’t gain anything from saying this to Steve, beyond pissing him off and potentially never getting to pet Susan again. So he keeps his mouth shut and helps corral the kittens into their box. The one with all white paws immediately tumbles back out and makes her way up Steve’s leg. </p><p>This one is Lucy, he’s pretty sure, and based on the way Steve swiftly scoops her up and kisses her head before returning her to the box, she’s clearly the favorite child. </p><p>The first bell rings. Jonathan has a long walk to fifth period. </p><p>“Well, uh,” He shoulders his bag and tries to sound casual when he says, “see you Monday.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Steve gives him a quick glance over his shoulder before returning his attention back to the box. The whole thing still feels so entirely foreign, somehow even more so than yesterday. Yesterday he could brush off as a bizarre fever dream, or a brief moment of insanity that he could have backed out of if he wanted to. Today is too much change to ignore. Today he actually made the decision to engage in an activity with Steve Harrington and watched him kiss a kitten and left with the intention of seeing him again. </p><p>It feels stranger than fighting a monster with him. At least then there had been the thin line between life and death tying them together, forcing them to cling to it with their hands side by side. Now it’s all voluntary.</p><p>Jonathan decides he’s doing this for Susan the kitten. Steve is a byproduct, and an insane one, but still a byproduct. And to think, just a day ago, that Jonathan didn’t even like cats. </p><p> </p><p>Will has an episode Monday morning. </p><p>Right as they’re walking out the door. The mornings have been Jonathan’s favorite part of the day recently. There’s always so much going on between cooking breakfast and helping Mom find her keys and making sure Will isn’t forgetting his notebooks for the millionth time that there’s never a moment to stop and worry about things. Plus Will always seems the most like himself in the mornings. Fresh and alert from chugging orange juice and behaving in no way that forces them to scrutinize if he’s quiet because kids are still being jerks at school or because there’s something <em>happening</em>. </p><p>This morning something happens. Jonathan thinks the days of letting his guard down in the morning are over. </p><p>“You’re <em>sure</em> you have your stuff?” He asks, a few steps ahead of Will on his way out the door. On Friday he’d forgotten his homework and gotten a pep talk from Mr. Clarke, which probably made him feel worse than if he’d just gotten scolded. There’s no answer and Jonathan rolls his eyes, assuming he’ll turn and find that Will has rushed back inside to grab whatever he left behind. Instead he finds Will standing in the doorway, stiff and staring blankly at the sun peeking up over the pines. </p><p>Jonathan drops his backpack and keys on the pavement and makes it to Will in three long strides, falls to his knees in front of him hard enough to make his knees sting. He never knows what to do. He took a first aid class three years ago after Lucas got heat stroke from running around outside with Will and Mike in the middle of July and Jonathan was the only one home to handle it. The feeling of having no control over the situation, of being in the role of big brother and babysitter but having absolutely no idea what to do, kept him awake at night until he finished the class and got a certificate.</p><p>The certificate is fucking useless. The class didn’t cover what to do when someone is suddenly cold and unresponsive and shaking while somehow maintaining a stiffness that suggests the shaking is coming from inside. All he can do is yell for Mom and uselessly grip Will’s shoulders.</p><p>The episode goes on for two minutes, a little longer than the past few. It ends like they always tend to, with Will suddenly jerking out of his stillness with a gasp like he’s been held underwater. He’s disoriented and scared and his eyes immediately well up with tears that Jonathan can’t do anything about other than wipe away once they’ve already fallen. He sits on the couch with him, arm firmly around two bony shoulders, while Mom rattles off the news to Hopper on the phone. </p><p>“I’m sorry.” Will says, voice wavering. “You’re gonna miss your class.”</p><p>“Don’t be sorry about that, are you kidding?”</p><p>“You’re gonna be behind on work--”</p><p>“Will, nothing I do at school matters. I can make up work and I can figure out lessons, alright? I don’t need to actually be there at all.”</p><p>They settle into silence after that and in that silence they can hear Mom trying to get through to Will’s doctor. Contacting the lab is always difficult, apparently. She’s calling someone an asshole, so Jonathan grabs the remote and they watch Transformers until Hopper comes.</p><p>Jonathan feels a little better when Hopper is around. Logically it doesn’t make much sense. Hopper is not a doctor and he never really makes the situation objectively better, but he makes things <em>feel</em> better. He never panics. If he does, he covers it well enough for Jonathan to never know the difference. His voice is always calm and steady. Sometimes he makes jokes that bring out the briefest and faintest smiles from Will. </p><p>“Staying home today might not be a bad idea.” Hopper suggests, mostly to Mom. Then to Will he says, “How about it, kid? A day without any math.”</p><p>“Transformers marathon.” Jonathan adds. </p><p>Will takes a second to consider it. Even when he was just in kindergarten, he hated missing school. Whether it’s the actual class he wants to be there for or lunch and recess with his friends, Jonathan isn’t sure. Today, though, he nods and gets up from the couch slowly to change back into pajamas. Mom flits after him anxiously and the minute she’s out of earshot Hopper turns to Jonathan. </p><p>“You need to go to school.” He says, sympathetic but firm. Before Jonathan can even form a word of protest, he puts up two defensive hands. “I know you’d rather be here but your mom is already worked up.”</p><p>It goes unsaid, but they both understand the reality of the situation. Mom is less stressed when there aren’t other stressed people to feed off of. Jonathan will try, but he won’t be able to keep the worry off his face for the rest of the day and Mom will take it and amplify it by a hundred. And of course, Jonathan thinks bitterly, Mom takes precedence. It’s not like Jonathan has made every meal for Will from the moment he was old enough to be trusted with the stove, or stayed home with him while she worked, or helped him complete dozens of school projects at the kitchen table. All of that doesn’t count when it comes down to who gets to worry about Will openly and who has to just swallow it and go to school. </p><p>“Fine. Make sure she doesn’t smother him so hard he stops breathing.”</p><p>Jonathan slams his car door and drives to school with his stereo turned up louder than necessary. It’s near the end of second period when he pulls into the parking lot. There’s no point in catching the last ten minutes of history, so he walks around the length of the school until he reaches the dumpster. </p><p>Steve is there. It only serves to make more irritation flare up in Jonathan’s overcrowded brain because of <em>course</em> Steve doesn’t have to be in class when everyone else does and of <em>course</em> he’s here to ruin what was supposed to be Jonathan’s only moments of peace all day. Not that he would’ve been able to calm down enough for the word peace to be anywhere near accurate. </p><p>He considers leaving, but Steve glances up and sees him before he can swivel away. Of course he does. </p><p>Steve opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, probably ask something based off the confusion clear on his face, but instead he ducks his head to sneeze. It’s jarring enough to briefly silence the noise in Jonathan’s mind and leave him with only one thought--Steve can do that?</p><p>“What are you doing here?” Steve asks, lifting his head and resuming his usual casual, breezy tone like nothing even happened. </p><p>“What are <em>you</em> doing here?” Jonathan retorts, perhaps a little too strongly. He struggles to find the fiery rage he’d been consumed with only a second ago, but he feels like he’s been doused with a bucket of cold water. He reluctantly fosters the remaining little flame of anger and walks over to sit on the grass. </p><p>“Feeding my cats.” Steve responds like it should be obvious. It quells the flame even further because Jonathan remembers that this is Steve’s spot. He can’t come to someone else’s spot and demand solitude. “I asked you first.”</p><p>“I just got here, I--overslept. There was no point in going to second period.”</p><p>Susan blinks awake from her nap on top of Steve’s backpack and immediately wobbles over to Jonathan. She somehow looks bigger than she did on Friday. She also walks with slightly more steadiness. The way she sidles up to Jonathan’s leg is the same, though, and he thinks maybe scratching behind her ears will be the new moment of peace he has during the day. </p><p>Steve is feeding Peter. Or attempting to. He stops suddenly, pulling the syringe away and eliciting a cry of protest in response, and covers a sneeze with the crook of his arm.</p><p>“Are you sick?” He doesn’t really look sick. His nose is red and his eyes are watering, but besides that he looks his usual color and seems to have his usual energy. More energy than Friday, actually. Jonathan bitterly thinks if he catches some kind of virus Mom will have no choice but to let him stay home with Will. </p><p>“Allergies.” Steve mutters, returning to Peter. “I forgot to take Benadryl this morning when I left so, y’know.”</p><p>Jonathan’s had allergies his entire life and they never start this early. Maybe at the opposite end of the year, but now? “What are you allergic to?”</p><p>Steve nods down at kitten cradled in his left hand. Jonathan’s jaw drops despite himself. </p><p>“<em>Cats</em>?” </p><p>“What, you’ve never heard of it?” Steve snaps. There’s a discomfort in his posture, his tone all of the sudden. It doesn’t seem likely that many people have seen Steve Harrington in his current state, and he must be painfully aware of that. Jonathan isn’t the only one having a bad morning, it seems. </p><p>This poses as a perfect opportunity for Jonathan to get annoyed again. He even has someone to take it out on and he wouldn’t necessarily be the jerk because theoretically Steve started it by snapping. Unfortunately, Jonathan can’t summon any more anger. It’s actually kind of funny. </p><p>“So you’re allergic to cats and you find a whole litter behind the dumpster and instead of just finding someone else to take care of them, you decide to develop a Benadryl addiction? Doesn’t it make you tired?”</p><p>“I’m tired anyways.” Steve mumbles. “I don’t know, I just thought being kinda tired would be better than abandoning six baby cats to die. Crazy, I guess.”</p><p>“If you’re gonna take the Benadryl anyways, why not just bring them home?”</p><p>“They’d get their fur all over everything and I’d have to take it literally every four hours for the rest of my life.” Does he plan on driving to this school every day for the rest of his life? Not that these cats will be around for the rest of Steve’s life. He doesn’t seem to consider that. “Plus my parents would freak.”</p><p>Jonathan wishes his problems were that simple. He wishes the only thing that would set Mom off could be something typical like bringing home strays or getting mud on the carpet. He wishes he had a <em>choice</em> like Steve does instead of just having to live in a constant state of residual panic and stress that radiates from Mom like radioactivity. And, he thinks with a sudden flare up of his original resentment, he wishes he could tell Steve Harrington how tame his parents probably are compared to Mom. </p><p>As if he’s asking to hear it, Steve looks over and says, “You never told me why you couldn’t bring them home.”</p><p>“My mom would also freak.”</p><p>Steve nods. He probably thinks they’re the same. Like he can relate to Jonathan somehow. It’s enough for Jonathan to actually feel fucking insulted, so he adds,</p><p>“Ever since last year, Will’s had these episodes. I don’t know when we started calling them that. It’s what his doctors call them. It’s like, he freezes up and sees things that he saw when he was...<em>there</em>. And it isn’t just PTSD like they keep telling us it is, because I’ve seen them and he’s not here when they happen. I don’t know where he is, but he’s not here. And he gets cold, like several degrees colder, which I’m pretty sure isn’t a PTSD thing. So my Mom is already constantly worried he’s just going to, I don’t even know, break into pieces and I don’t really need to contribute the problem.”</p><p>Steve’s eyes are wide and bright from the involuntary tears he keeps having to brush away. Jonathan was not supposed to tell anyone this. The doctors at the lab said it would be best if things are kept in the family. Their reasoning was Will’s privacy, but Jonathan thinks it might also have something to do with them being the direct source of the issue. But Will’s friends know after seeing him have one a few weeks ago and Hopper knows and it’s not like Steve wasn’t literally in the waiting room when he came back. </p><p>Plus, thirty seconds ago he had <em>needed</em> Steve to know that they are not the same. Jonathan hadn’t known how else to get that across except to spell it out and practically shake his shoulders, yell in his face that he has <em>no</em> idea what it’s like. Right now feels different. Steve appears to be mulling it all over and his expression is quietly sympathetic. Not pitying. Not morbidly curious. Just sympathetic. </p><p>“I had no idea he was still dealing with that.” Steve remarks softly after another few seconds of thought. “I mean, obviously I figured he was still having nightmares and probably had the PDST thing but like, physically, I didn’t know it was still--”</p><p>“No one really does.” Jonathan mutters. </p><p>“Does Nancy?”</p><p>“No.” Jonathan has been aching to tell her. They talk on the phone almost every night and there have been a million moments of brief quiet while they pivot between topics and remember things that happened during their days that are worth mentioning. It always would have been so easy to tell her and it would have felt so nice. Jonathan had always forcefully restrained himself. Will’s privacy, he repeated to himself like a mantra. Plus, Nancy was handling enough of her own heartache. </p><p>“I won’t like, tell anyone.” Steve rushes to assure him. “And I mean, I don’t know how committed you are to the doctors you’re seeing but my dad knows people at Riley, that hospital in the city for kids, and maybe I--”</p><p>“His doctors are from the lab.”</p><p>“Oh.” Steve nods. “Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I guess you couldn’t really tell anyone else, right?”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>There’s another silence. Susan has fallen back asleep on his leg, her two front paws stretched all the way to his knee. He wonders where she’d be if Steve had decided he didn’t want to take Benadryl multiple times a day. </p><p>“I’m really sorry.” Steve’s voice is genuine, still soft. </p><p>“It’s alright.” Jonathan responds. “Sorry you’re addicted to antihistamines.”</p><p>Steve makes a sound that’s either a huffed out laugh or the build-up to another sneeze. He’s grinning when Jonathan peeks up. He must be slowly adjusting to the rate at which strange interactions with Steve occur, because it feels almost normal. Almost. </p><p>“You never said why you weren’t in class.” Jonathan reminds him. </p><p>“People are <em>not</em> seeing me like this. I took some in the middle of first, they just gotta kick in.”</p><p>“You miss a lot of class.”</p><p>“It’s worth being confused about trig. More confused, anyways.”</p><p>If Jonathan had come sooner, Steve could have caught him in the hallway and asked him to give the cats their breakfast. He never would’ve had to come into contact with them without the barrier of Benadryl to keep his reputation intact.</p><p>He doesn’t regret missing first in the slightest, but it does make him feel like a liar. There <em>are</em> reasons for him to be at school.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>drama! as u can see my username on here is different now! rip mjolnirbreaker it was good when i made this account like two years ago but now my name is a reference to my boo floralathena's fic just another graceless night go read it!! and hmu on tumblr @steveharrington</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i adopted a four week old kitten over the summer and i love stonathan so yeah.....yeah! thank u to em my bb for reading this for me ily follow her on tumblr @lesbianrobin and here @floralathena ! i will try to update this consistently but yknow! im on tumblr @steveharrington if u wanna talk &lt;3</p>
<p>title is from i know the end by phoebe bridgers!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>